We Are Social’s Tuesday Tune-Up #102

News
brad.buzzard

Australian Politicians Keeping it Light
Just ahead of September’s federal elections, Aussie politicians took a short break from the seriousness of their campaigns to appear in a music video from Aussie punk band Super Best Friends. While it is evidently clear in the video that Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbot and a host of other politicians and journalists had fun participating, the song, called Round and Round, actually has a serious message; it is a commentary on how the media cycle stifles political debate in favour of rehearsed messaging and regurgitated sound bytes. At the time of this writing, the video has received more than 71,000 views.

Ubuntu smartphone from Canonical takes the Crowdfunding Crown
Canonical, the developer of the free operating system Ubuntu, has ignited the largest crowdsourcing campaign ever with its Ubuntu Edge smartphone. At the time of this writing, the project has amassed $11.6 million in pledges on Indiegogo. Though this is well short of the $32 million goal, Ubuntu’s founder Mark Shuttleworth says it has certainly exceeded expectations and sparked widespread interest. The previous record holder was Pebble for its Pebble e-paper watch, which attracted $10.2 million in pledges on Kickstarter.

Facebook launches active user metrics amongst impressive June figures
Facebook has released various active user figures from June in the last week, starting with an announcement that the network now receives 101 million daily mobile users in the US, or 142 million throughout the entire month, compared with respective figures of 128 million total DAUs and 179 million total MAUs. UK figures display 33 million monthly active users and 24 million daily active users, with respective mobile figures of 26 million and 20 million. The announcement of these figures can be considered a sort of advertising push for the platform’s new monthly DAU/MAU metrics, launched for desktop and mobile last week.

Twitter and Facebook growth – US and UK
Both Facebook and Twitter are set to increase their US mobile user bases in the next 5 years, according to research by eMarketer. Twitter’s figures, shown below, will rise from 28 million in 2013 to 43.3 million in 2017, though this is not coupled by a significant increase in penetration. In fact, the percentage of mobile social media users on Twitter is likely to remain very similar.

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The same is true of Facebook: huge growth from 99.2 million to 154.7 million is not coupled with a significant penetration increase, partly due to the figure already being so high.

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Both networks are also seeing growth in the UK, though in Facebook’s case this is once again not due to growing penetration. Facebook will rise from 29.9 million to 33.6 million UK monthly users by 2017, though in the same period, penetration of UK internet users will shift only from 62.5% to 64.9%. Twitter sees an increase from 9.9 million to 13.8 million in the same period, with a more hefty penetration increase from 20.8% to 26.6%. The Drum has pointed out that this is largely due to strong activity from 18-34 year olds; by 2017, 44.9% of UK internet users aged 18-24 will use Twitter, and 39.6% of 25-34s, compared with an average figure of 26.6%.

Social media the tactic most marketers plan to increase
A survey of marketing professionals conducted by the CMO Council has found that 70% plan to increase their social media activity in the coming year. This is the highest figure of any, followed by mobile with 69% and video with 64%.

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How to alienate consumers using social
eMarketer has reported on the best way to alienate consumers using social media, with ‘poor spelling or grammar’ the chief offender. Of the 1,003 people surveyed, 42.5% cited this as a reason, followed by the 24.9% who cited forced salesmanship and the 12.8% who thought posts were too frequent. Responses differed slightly by gender, too, as shown in the below table.

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Facebook testing PayPal competitor
Facebook is trialling a system that allows users to make purchases on mobile apps using their Facebook login information, considered to be a direct competitor to PayPal if it goes ahead. The system will be trialled with one partner, a flash sale site called Jack Threads, to start with, though Facebook denies the direct competition angle:

We continue to have a great relationship with PayPal, and this product is simply to test how we can help our app partners provide a simpler commerce experience. This test does not involve moving the payment processing away from an app’s current provider.

However, that’s not the only question Facebook need to answer. With issues in the past around privacy, it will be interesting to see if users are willing to hand over financial details to the network.

Facebook mobile pages add restaurant and TV features
Facebook has added a couple of features to its mobile pages by partnering with OpenTable and Rovi. The former sees users able to book a table directly through a restaurant’s Facebook page, available across North America for OpenTable customers. The latter adds listings to US primetime TV and movie pages, which will provide information on the time, channel and a short description. The restaurant addition in particular sees Facebook look to take on the likes of Foursquare in the localised social market and it will be interesting to see how the two features perform.

Facebook allow targeting for page-created events
It is now possible for Facebook page admins to target who sees a story in their News Feed about the creation of an event. The feature, which works based on seven categories (Gender, Relationship status, Educational status, Interested in, Age, Location and Language) will look as follows:

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Twitter trialling display box of what TV is trending
Twitter is now testing a box with some users that shows what TV shows are trending on the network. Currently available for a limited number of iPhone/iPad users, it’s unclear if the feature will be rolled out further. If so, it can be considered another significant part in Twitter’s strategy to link itself ever closer with TV viewing.

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LinkedIn introduces University pages
LinkedIn is looking to gain traction with the younger market by introducing University pages. Students can examine different notable alumni, view the career paths of alumni from different courses and begin networking with potential employers with a similar educational background.

Sina Weibo exceeds 50 million daily active users
China’s answer to Twitter, Sina Weibo, announced that it had 54 million daily active users in June 2013, up 8.3% since March. This represents strong growth for the network, though Sina itself admits a dip in the time spent on Weibo, as a result of competition from Tencent’s WeChat.

WeChat owners Tencent miss profit estimates
Tencent itself has been pushing spending on marketing its WeChat service to such an extent that it missed analyst estimates on profits; year-on-year, its net profit rose 19% from 3.1 to 3.68 billion yuan ($601 million), short of the 3.9 billion-yuan average of six analysts’ estimates. This was in large part due to a big money deal to secure footballer Lionel Messi as a brand ambassador.

Gap taking over Tumblr’s ads for a day
High street fashion retailer Gap will be taking over all of Tumblr’s ad offering for a single day, filling the space with content created by fans. Dubbed ‘Back to Blue’, the campaign will ask fans to create a piece of content about what blue means to them; the four winners will be used as Tumblr ads.

Twitter ad packages for MTV VMAs
Viacom and Twitter are teaming up to sell packages of ads on Twitter to MTV Video Music Award sponsors, during the ceremony itself. The move looks to take advantage of the increase in conversation during the event – think talking points like Kanye West storming Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech – and follows in the footsteps of similar deals Twitter has struck with sports broadcasters, TV networks and publishers from ESPN to the BBC.

Barclaycard US launch #LiketoLove Facebook campaign
Barclaycard US is planning a set of social media activations over the coming months, the first of which comes under the name #LiketoLove. This takes the form of a Facebook campaign, in which fans are asked to post a photo, along with a post explaining what they ‘Like to Love’, for the chance to win a customised daily and weekly prize.

Natwest uses Vine to promote student account
In line with the upcoming academic year, British bank Natwest is using Vine to promote its student account. It is encouraging fans to #beuniproof with a set of hints and tips on saving money. Some examples of the Vines can be seen here.

We Are Social and Jaguar celebrate modern Britain
We Are Social has produced a campaign to celebrate Jaguar’s new F-TYPE, asking people to celebrate what makes modern Britain great with the hashtag #YourTurnBritain. Stretching across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, the activity takes on multiple strands, including video content from BAFTA award winning director Anthony Wonke, plus a photo submission competition using the aforementioned hashtag. Watch the video below to get a feel for the campaign.

Carphone Warehouse launch ‘Smart Bites’ around football match
UK mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse this weekend launched its ‘Smart Bites’ campaign with a tweet around the first Manchester United match without Alex Ferguson as manager. When new manager David Moyes led his side to victory, they tweeted the following, tying into the cultural event:

RNLI looking to social for increased coverage
The RNLI, the UK charity aimed at saving lives at sea, has created a campaign that looks to increase its coverage using social media. It allows Facebook or Twitter users to opt into a scheme that will automatically repost rescue stories from the RNLI’s own social presences every one or two weeks, visible to all the user’s friends. Dubbed #SaveWave, the system will send out a wave of posts and Tweets simultaneously, so as to maximise the possible impact.

Aer Lingus put Twitter handle on jet
Irish airline Aer Lingus has moved to make flying a more social experience, including its Twitter handle on one of its jets. Part owned by Ryanair, Aer Lingus’s move comes just months after Ryanair owner Michael O’Leary referred to social media users as “halfwits”. Slightly mixed messaging, then.